Virgin Media 30Mbps Norwich area

I have been experiencing high ping, huge latency, and drop offs for some time.

I upgraded from a 10Mbps line in October, having not really had any problem with the previous connection(ping around 20 for online games, and reasonably consistent speed around 8Mbps) , but wanted to try SUPERFAST BROADBAND and only really had a great service for about 2 weeks after the upgrade before the problems started

I have reset my router countless times, reinstalled windows7 trying both 32 and 64bit to see if that helped, which it didn't. I have been advised by VM staff to reset my router, and they seem reluctant to send someone out, prefering to suggest that it's my hardware that is the problem and that I should take my PC somewhere to be looked at, in my first phone call at least.

In a more recent call, the person I spoke to acknowledged there was a fault, but seemed to think it was already being dealt with, and that no enginner was needed for me specifically. I was advised to be patient, and wait a week. I was given a £10 discount from this months bill which was nice, but not as nice a service that delivers the goods.

I set up a monitor last night following advice from tech help on the VM forum (which apparently no-one working for VM is involved in - genius!), and wondered anyon has an opinion on what it shows, and what I should do.

Re: Virgin Media 30Mbps Norwich area

Assuming you were not using your connection at the same time it shows high utilisation even in the middle of night, suggesting you may have a couple of torrent users in the area that are seeding a lot and saturating the upstream that like downstream is shared

Re: Virgin Media 30Mbps Norwich area

As MrSaffron says, assuming that your connection was not being used to the maximum throughout the monitored period, your monitor shows a great deal of jitter even in the middle of the night and increasing amounts of packet loss as people get up and start trying to use their connections.

If you're lucky, Virgin will resegment the network and you'll finish up on a segment away from heavy upstream users (typically heavy peer to peer users). More likely, nothing will happen - or if it does, you will only have similar problems again after a short while.

Unfortunately, the shared nature of the 'last mile' channels in a cable system makes it fundamentally vulnerable to this kind of over-utilisation. DSL has other weaknesses - it is vulnerable to the local RF noise environment and the available speed depends on the length and quality of your line - but it doesn't share this problem. By way of comparison, see the monitor in my signature, which is on an 80/20 VDSL line over the BT Openreach system. It helps that I use one of the more expensive ISPs, who don't skimp on capacity in their network or their links to the BT Wholesale backhaul network, but most of the consumer ISPs can manage something similar.

Clearly your first step is to contact Virgin using your monitor as evidence that they are not providing a satisfactory quality of service - consumer broadband is contended, but you're connected to something that is full. Ultimately, you may be better with DSL, though that's not likely to be a cheap option as you will need a phone line over BT infrastructure as well as any Virgin line you keep.

Re: Virgin Media 30Mbps Norwich area

I've just had a conversation with "James" at VM 151, who says that VM's technicians are doing some work at the local exchange to put in another line, so that customers can be moved across to it. This is will apparently improve the service being provided. This will not be completed before 13th Feb.

I don't have a lot of faith in VM; does this sound like BS, or do they put "second lines" in, once all the fibre optics are installed??!!

On a happier note, I got a further £5 credit on my account ( I got a £10 credit from "Marie" at VM on the 14th Jan, who told me the problem would be fixed by today). So, I'm £15 up this month. FTW. Kind of.

Re: Virgin Media 30Mbps Norwich area

I've just had a conversation with "James" at VM 151, who says that VM's technicians are doing some work at the local exchange to put in another line, so that customers can be moved across to it. This is will apparently improve the service being provided. This will not be completed before 13th Feb.

This could be a really bad description of resegmenting the local cable network at the node, which is the only way your situation will be helped. This involves physically dividing the existing network into two or more pieces, which means each segment has its own set of upstream channels, increasing the capacity available.

If resegmentation doesn't take place or doesn't resolve the issue, I'd be looking to escape from Virgin and move to a different ISP.

Re: Virgin Media 30Mbps Norwich area

I live in Norwich and I am sorry to say but this is not a new issue for the Norwich area. I upgraded about 18 months ago and it has been present since.
It can be best described as a sometimes off but mostly active issue. I had a period of 3 months after making serious complaints to the CEO's office of Virgin where it improved. Within a day I had a team of engineers round, they had to accept it was a result of high utilisation.